‘Were you present at the original Kramer interviews?’ asked Connell. ‘I mean before he had the heart attack.’
‘Oh no. That would have been quite improper. I was kept informed though. I was also there when the decision was made to allow Kramer’s encoded telegram to be sent, in the hope that it would bring Oberholzer, his pay-master, to Zurich. As we know, it did.’
Dr Henson sniffed. ‘Even such a stupid woman as Frau Kramer must have known that the police couldn’t try and convict a dead man. If he embezzled that money from the bank and it could be proved that he’d embezzled it, even without his being there, things might have been different. As it was, the police had no case against either her or Oberholzer, and probably no claim to any money there might have been lying around.’
‘You would be surprised,’ said Krom, ‘how great an appearance of power a senior Swiss policeman can convey just by looking absolutely serious. Except in one thing. Frau Kramer did exactly as she was told. The exception was in the matter of where the identification of Oberholzer before witnesses was to take place. She refused, practically at the last minute, to have Oberholzer in her apartment.’
‘On what grounds? He must have been there before, she must have known him before, or how could she have identified him?’
‘She said that until the police had told her that Oberholzer was a criminal she had not known.’
‘Had the police told her?’ Connell asked.
‘Of course not. Challenged on the point, she maintained that the interest of the police in Oberholzer had been enough to tell her. It was obvious now that Oberholzer was a criminal. Her husband, who had known the man slightly, had been questioned about him, but had known nothing. Now, she was being questioned. She also knew nothing, but would assist the police in identifying the villain, anywhere but in the apartment sacred to her husband’s memory and to her own memories of their happiness together.’
She hadn’t needed a lawyer, I would have said.
‘There is still the question of the code-names,’ Dr Henson was reminding Krom.
‘I am not forgetting it, young woman. My good relations with the Swiss authorities obviously do not depend alone upon academic associations. When I am given information it is given on the understanding that the arrangement is reciprocal. I pick their brains, and they pick mine. In this case I helped them discover the real names of the two enquiry-agent clients, the Spaniard and the American, who had defied, or tried to defy, the Oberholzer organization.’
‘Kleister and Torten, you mean? Oh, I see. You matched the code-names with the details found by the police in Kramer’s private files.’
‘Precisely.’ Krom did not like Connell stealing his thunder like that, as he went on to make clear. ‘But the question asked was not ‘how did the police get the names?’ but ‘why did they give them to Oberholzer?’ I will tell you. It began as a joke.’
‘Huh?’
‘Yes, I agree. A somewhat macabre joke but a joke nevertheless. My police friends had made enquiries about the then whereabouts of Kleister and Torten and found that Torten, the American, had since his release from prison on probation, been enjoying his freedom in Florida. Kleister, his old ally, had recently joined him there. What was more, he had joined him not just for a brief holiday, it was understood, but on a permanent basis. Both men were widowers, and, in spite of their costly troubles, both were still wealthy. It seemed likely that they might be preparing to resume operations against the Oberholzer extortionists. For two men of their ages with money to spend and a cause that they could think of as a crusade, what could be a more pleasurable way of passing the time than finding a man they both hated, and then arranging for his murder?’
‘Yes,’ said Connell. ‘I can see that there’d be room there for loads of laughs.’
‘I remember my police friends saying in their droll way that, if Oberholzer were going to be murdered, they would prefer that the crime be committed outside their jurisdiction because they would not have their hearts in the investigation. Someone suggested that they might give Oberholzer a warning of the danger by mentioning Kleister and Torten to him verbally. Later, when the confrontation was moved from the Kramer apartment to the crematorium, they put those marked folders with the code-names in the brief-case because they intended to stop and interrogate Oberholzer at the airport when he tried to leave. Their object, since they could not prosecute him, was, first, to intimidate him, second, to trip him if they could into some damaging admission about his relationship with Kramer and, lastly, to make it clear that he was considered an undesirable alien who would be well advised to stay out of Switzerland. They thought that the code-names in the brief-case might prove useful as an element in the interrogation. In fact, as we now know, he eluded them at the airport, though more by luck than by ingenuity. However, the warning of the code-names did not, it seems, go unheeded. He is still alive.
I wonder about Kleister and Torten. Perhaps he knows. Perhaps I will ask him.’
‘Well,’ said Dr Henson, ‘one thing’s explained. I can see now why he objected so strongly to that field kit of Langridge’s that I tried to smuggle in. With one set of fingerprints on record in Switzerland against an old identity, the last thing he’d want would be another set of prints, one attached to his current identity, circulating internationally. The two would almost certainly be matched. I must say, though, that he doesn’t strike me as a man who has been labouring for years under a threat of death from a pair of half-witted tax-dodgers. If anyone’s had the pleasurable time, I’d say it was he. Most regrettable no doubt, but my guess is that he doesn’t know what a twinge of guilt feels like and that he has always thoroughly enjoyed himself.’
‘He will not be enjoying himself for much longer, my dear. Of that I can assure you. As for us, I think it is time that we went down to breakfast.’
I was ready, seated at the table on the terrace waiting for them when they came down.
They all told me, in response to my polite enquiries, how comfortable they had been and how well they had slept, thank you, at the same time managing to make it clear that solicitude would get me nowhere and that, now they were rested, the sooner we got down to business the better. None of them asked how I had slept.
The coffee was not nearly as good as the earlier pot I had had, but they drank it appreciatively and ate their croissants. Krom did not wait to finish his, however, before going into action.
‘We have all read with interest your first paper,’ he said, spraying crumbs with the sibilants, ‘and, while we find some of it useful, we all agree that it is far from satisfactory.’
‘Full of holes,’ Connell explained.
‘And doth protest too much,’ said Henson in her Langridge’s voice, ‘against accusations that, as far as I know, haven’t yet been made.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you should all try reading it again, and more carefully.’
Krom swallowed the rest of his coffee and reached for more. ‘I myself have read it three times,’ he said; ‘and with each reading it has seemed less and less illuminating, except in one respect.’
‘I am relieved to hear that my failure has not been total.’
‘Sarcasm will not help you. What is illuminated so brilliantly is your determination to disclaim all responsibility for anything and everything concerned with this large-scale criminal activity except the humble part you played in it as a kind of superior, but none too competent, messenger boy.’
‘Incompetent, yes. Humble? I sincerely hope not. The last thing I want to do is give false impressions.’
‘Flippancy is even more tiresome than sarcasm, Mr Firman, so let us have no more of either. We at any rate are serious, and — ’ he whipped a folded sheet of notes from his shirt pocket — ‘to begin with, I propose to ask you a series of questions.’